CCleaner & Defraggler Performance Report(September 2017)
Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

Document: CCleaner & Defraggler Performance Report
Authors:
M. Baquiran, D. Wren
Company: PassMark Software
Date:
27 September 2017
File:
Piriform_CCleaner_Performance_Ed2.docx
Edition2

CCleaner & Defraggler Performance Report

PassMark Software

Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS......................................................................................................................................... 2
SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
PRODUCTS AND VERSIONS ............................................................................................................................... 4
TEST RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................... 5
BENCHMARK 1 – DISK SPACE RECOVERED FROM INITIAL CLEANUP ..................................................................................... 5
BENCHMARK 2 – DISK SPACE RECOVERED PER WEEK ....................................................................................................... 5
BENCHMARK 4 – CHANGE IN FREE RAM ...................................................................................................................... 6
BENCHMARK 4 – MACHINE BOOT TIME ........................................................................................................................ 8
BENCHMARK 5 – BROWSER LOAD TIME ........................................................................................................................ 9
BENCHMARK 6 – MANUAL CLEANUP TIME VS. CCLEANER CLEANUP TIME ............................................................................ 9
BENCHMARK 7 – INSTALLATION SIZE.......................................................................................................................... 10
BENCHMARK 8 – INSTALLATION TIME ........................................................................................................................ 10
BENCHMARK 9 – MEMORY USAGE DURING IDLE .......................................................................................................... 11
BENCHMARK 10 – CPU USAGE DURING IDLE............................................................................................................... 11
BENCHMARK 11 – NUMBER OF ARTIFACTS & PASSWORDS CLEANED ................................................................................ 12
CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................................ 14
DISK SPACE RECOVERED .......................................................................................................................................... 14
RAM FREED UP .................................................................................................................................................... 14
BOOT TIME ........................................................................................................................................................... 14
BROWSER LAUNCH TIMES ........................................................................................................................................ 14
CLEAN UP TIME ..................................................................................................................................................... 14
INSTALLATION TIME ................................................................................................................................................ 14
INSTALLATION SIZE ................................................................................................................................................. 14
MEMORY USAGE ................................................................................................................................................... 15
IDLE CPU LOAD ..................................................................................................................................................... 15
APPENDIX 1 - TEST ENVIRONMENT ................................................................................................................. 16
APPENDIX 2 – METHODOLOGY DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................. 19
DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURE ....................................................................................................................... 22
CONTACT DETAILS .......................................................................................................................................... 22

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Summary
PassMark Software® conducted objective performance testing on two Piriform software products, CCleaner andDefraggler, on Windows 10 and Windows 7 between April & May 2017. This report presents details of our results
and findings as well as the test methodologies that were used to obtain these results.
The aim of this benchmark was to measure and demonstrate the benefits provided by the application to acomputer system’s performance. This was achieved by comparing the results of performance metrics taken both
before and after CCleaner and Defraggler were installed and run on different setups.
The four different setups were as follows:• Windows 7 Laptop – Standard Image, in which a standard set of typical consumer applications have been
installed and a typical amount of usage has occurred on the machine.
• Windows 10 Desktop – Standard Image, As above but with Win10.
• Windows 7 Laptop – Extended Image, in which a standard set of typical consumer applications were
installed as well as a more extensive list of less common applications, that could be found on the PC of aheavy user. See Appendix 1 for details.
• Windows 10 Desktop – Extended Image, As above but with Win10.
The following three rounds of testing were conducted on four different setups:• Baseline - A baseline round in which CCleaner nor Defragger has been installed or run.
• CCleaner - A round in which CCleaner has been installed and a clean run.
• CCleaner & Defraggler - A round in which CCleaner and subsequently Defraggler have been installed and aclean and defrag was run (i.e. Defraggler is installed and run on top of the previous CCleaner round).
The following fourteen (11) performance metrics were carried out for each round of testing:• Disk space recovered from initial cleanup;• Disk space recovered per week;• Change in free RAM;
• Machine boot time;• Browser load time;• Manual cleanup time vs. CCleaner cleanup time;• Installation size;• Installation time;• Memory usage during idle;• CPU usage during idle; and• Number of artifacts & passwords cleaned.
All of PassMark Software’s test methods can be replicated by third parties using the same environment to obtain
similar benchmark results. Detailed descriptions of the test environment and methodologies used in our tests areavailable in the sections Appendix 1 – Test Environment and Appendix 2 – Methodology Description in this report.

Windows 7 & Windows 10
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Products and Versions
For each product, we have tested the most current and publicly available version. The names and versions of
products are given below:

Product Name

Product Version

Date
TestedPiriform Software
Limited

CCleaner

5.28.6005 (64bit)

April 2017

Piriform Software
LimitedDefraggler

2.21.993

April 2017

Manufacturer

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Test Results
In the following charts, we have highlighted the results we obtained for CCleaner in red and the results obtained
for CCleaner and Defraggler installed together in blue.

Benchmark 1 – Disk space recovered from initial cleanup
The following chart shows the disk space in megabytes (MB) that was made available after running an initialcleanup on the system using CCleaner.

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner

Disk Space Recovered from cleanup (MB)1808.294147.193311.724226.18

Benchmark 2 – Disk space recovered per week
The following chart shows the disk space in megabytes (MB) that was made available after a week’s worth ofactivity has been carried out and then a subsequent cleanup using CCleaner was run.

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

Disk Space Recovered per week (MB)659.45305.38890.51
540.54

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Benchmark 4 – Change in free RAM

The following chart compares the free RAM as given in Windows Task Manager before and after each product was
installed and run. The more free RAM available to the system, the better the performance. The change in free
RAM for each round is noted below each chart.

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

2643

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner

2614

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - Baseline

1881

0 MB

500 MB

1,000 MB1,500 MB2,000 MB2,500 MB3,000 MB

Change in free RAM from running CCleaner = 733 MB
Change in free RAM from running CCleaner & Defraggler = 762 MB

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

6700

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner

6700

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - Baseline

5900

5,400 MB 5,600 MB 5,800 MB 6,000 MB 6,200 MB 6,400 MB 6,600 MB 6,800 MB

Change in free RAM from running CCleaner = 700 MB
Change in free RAM from running CCleaner & Defraggler = 700 MB1

1

Values rounded to the nearest 100 MB as Windows 10 only reports approximate numbers in GB.

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Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

1361

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner

783

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - Baseline

18

0 MB

200 MB

400 MB

600 MB

800 MB 1,000 MB 1,200 MB 1,400 MB 1,600 MB

Change in free RAM from running CCleaner = 1343 MB
Change in free RAM from running CCleaner & Defraggler = 1343 MB

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

6300

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner

6100

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - Baseline

0 MB

5000

1,000 MB2,000 MB3,000 MB4,000 MB5,000 MB6,000 MB

Change in free RAM from running CCleaner = 1100 MB
Change in free RAM from running CCleaner & Defraggler = 1300 MB2

2

Values rounded to the nearest 100 MB as Windows 10 only reports approximate numbers in GB.

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

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7,000 MB

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Benchmark 4 – Machine boot time
This metric measures the amount of time taken for the machine to boot into the operating system. When software
is set to launch at Windows startup, it can significantly delay the startup of the operating system. Shorter times
indicate that the installation and use of the applications have had a positive effect on the boot performance of thesystem.

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

24.8

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner

29.9

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - Baseline

52.9

0s

10 s

20 s

30 s

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner

48.0

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

48.6

40 s

50 s

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - Baseline

79.1

0s

10 s

20 s

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

30 s

40 s

50 s

60 s

70 s

80 s

90 s

88.3

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner

106.5

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - Baseline

199.9

0s

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

50 s

100 s

150 s

200 s

250 s

60.1

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner

67.8

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - Baseline

210.2

0s

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

60 s

50 s

100 s

150 s

200 s

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250 s

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Benchmark 5 – Browser load time
The following chart compares the average launch times of the default browser (Microsoft Edge on Windows 10
and Internet Explorer on Windows 7) after rebooting the machine.

Round
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image Baseline
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image Baseline
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image Baseline
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image Baseline
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

Browser Launch Average (ms)
2505
1924
1569
538
539
529
7283
8721
7442
2831
2808
2911

Note on browser load time
As CCleaner is a browser cleaning tool it can have a slightly negative effect on load time the first time a user opens
a browser after cleaning, due to the refreshing of cached items.

Benchmark 6 – Manual cleanup time vs. CCleaner cleanup time
The following chart compares the time it takes to run a cleanup using CCleaner against the time it takes to run anequivalent cleanup manually in Windows. Note that this was conducted on the extended image only.

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner

83

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - Baseline

1435

0s

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner

200 s

400 s

600 s

800 s

1,000 s1,200 s1,600 s55

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - Baseline

1290

0s

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

1,400 s

200 s

400 s

600 s

800 s

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Benchmark 7 – Installation size
The following table compares the total size of files added during the installation of each products. Note: The
installation size shown for Defraggler is for Defraggler only and not for Defraggler & CCleaner cumulatively.

Round
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - Defraggler
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - Defraggler

Installation Size (MB)
21.8
24.1
27.8
30.8
35.2
25.5
33.3
57.9

Benchmark 8 – Installation time
The following chart compares the minimum time it takes for the product to be fully functional and ready for use
by the end user. Note: The installation time shown for Defraggler is for Defraggler only and not for Defraggler &CCleaner cumulatively.

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - Defraggler
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - Defraggler

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

Installation Time (sec)
9
5
10
6
17
16
9
9

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Benchmark 9 – Memory usage during idle
The following chart gives the average amount of RAM used by CCleaner during a period of system idle. This average
is taken from a sample of fifteen memory snapshots taken at roughly 60 seconds apart after reboot.
Note: As CCleaner has a process that runs in the background even when the app windows is closed and Defraggler
doesn’t, there was no memory usage to measure for Defraggler in its idle state.

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner

Average Memory Usage during System Idle (MB)
19.1
14.7
17.0
12.2

Benchmark 10 – CPU usage during idle
The following chart compares the average CPU usage during system idle.

Round
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image Baseline
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image Baseline
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner & Defraggler
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image Baseline
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image Baseline
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner
Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner & Defraggler

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

CPU Usage During Idle (%)
0.5%
1.3%
1.2%
0.6%
1.7%
1.8%
3.6%
0.9%
1.3%
8.1%
7.6%
4.2%

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Benchmark 11 – Number of artifacts & passwords cleaned
OSForensics is a tool designed to enable governments and security agencies to digitally extract forensic evidence
from computers quickly, with high performance file searches and indexing. This test compared the number
artifacts and passwords extracted by OSForensics before and after CCleaner was run.
Notes on items cleaned
It is not the intention of CCleaner to remove all artifacts as doing so would have a negative effect on theperformance of the machines and / or the user experience. CCleaner states that “CCleaner cleans to asafe maximum. System, program and user setting files required for correct operation are not deleted”.
Examples of data fully deleted:•

Browser cookies•

Browsing history•

Cached passwords•

Crash dumps•

Temp files

Example of items partially deleted:•

Pre-fetch data•

Jump lists

Items that are not deleted, or cannot be completely deleted (35% of all items), fall into the following fivecategories and typical percentages:
1.

System related (34.8%) – removal of these items would cause potential impact to system stability andperformance, or removal is impossible as items are integral to the system.

2.

Startup items (0.2%) – the user can choose to remove these items using CCleaner via the Startup
management section of the application.

3.

User behavior whilst cleaning (0.2%) – CCleaner cannot clean items which are open during cleaning, forexample OSForensics, which was required to be open for the purposes of the test.

4.

Personal preference (0.1%) – these items are considered to be the user’s personal preference or datathat users would potentially like to retain e.g. browser bookmarks or Skype chat logs.

5. Auto-generated (0.1%) – these are items that CCleaner clears but are regenerated by the system
immediately.

The following charts compare the number artifacts and passwords extracted by OSForensics before and after
CCleaner was run. The final result is the difference between these two values, noted below each chart.

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

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Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - CCleaner

PassMark Software

6122 (See above breakdown: 1-5)

Win7 Laptop - Standard Image - Baseline

13128

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

Number of items cleaned by CCleaner = 7006

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - CCleaner

7156 (See above breakdown: 1-5)

Win10 Desktop - Standard Image - Baseline

12116

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

Number of items cleaned by CCleaner = 4960

4731 (See above breakdown:
1-5)

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - CCleaner

Win7 Laptop - Extended Image - Baseline

14738

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

Number of items cleaned by CCleaner = 10007

5220 (See above breakdown:
1-5)

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - CCleaner

Win10 Desktop - Extended Image - Baseline

13443

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

Number of items cleaned by CCleaner = 8223

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

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Conclusions
All of the following conclusions apply only to the specific scenarios tested.
Clean machines, with no third-party software installed, will likely show significantly less benefit than what
was observed in the tested scenarios. While machines with a very large amount of 3rd party software or
limited hardware resources will likely gain additional benefits, beyond what we observed.

Disk space recovered
On average, CCleaner can recover around 3,400 MB of disk space on the first clean, and then around 600
MB in the week following. If run weekly for a year, this would give an estimated total recovered disk spaceof 34,500 MB.

RAM Freed up
Across all four images, the average percentage of free RAM available (out of the machine’s total RAM)
increased from 41% to 56% after using CCleaner and Defraggler. This gives a 14% improvement, which isa 36% relative improvement.

Boot time
Across all four images, the aggregate boot time was seen to be 53% faster using CCleaner and after
subsequently running Defraggler, 59% faster.

Browser launch times
Across all four images, the aggregate browser launch time was seen to be 5% faster after running CCleaner
and Defraggler. However, the results are sensitive to initial conditions. Likely external influences such as
variable internet latency, initial file fragmentation state & caching state also influenced the results toincrease the error margin in the test results.

Clean up time
Many of the cleaning activities that CCleaner performs can be done manually if the user has sufficientknowledge and time. A comparison of a manual clean up, by an experienced engineer, to the automatedprocess in CCleaner, showed using CCleaner is 20 times faster than performing the same clean manually.

Installation time
On average, CCleaner takes 11 seconds to install.
On average, Defraggler takes 8.75 seconds to install.

Installation size
On average, CCleaner’s installation size is 29.55MB
On average, Defraggler’s installation size is 34.57MB.

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

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Memory usage
When installed, CCleaner has an almost negligible impact on idle memory usage, at less than 16MB (which
is approximately 0.2% of the installed RAM on the machines tested).

Idle CPU load
When installed, both CCleaner and Defraggler have an almost negligible impact on CPU usage, when idle.
The additional CPU load was too low to be accurately measured.

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

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Appendix 1 - Test Environment
Performance testing was carried out on the following machines:

Test Machine 1: Low-End Laptop
Model:
CPU:
Video Card:RAM:
HDD (Main Boot Drive):
O/S:

DELL Inspiron N5010
Intel Core i5 M 450 @ 2.40 GHz
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series
6GB DDR3 RAM
500 GB 5400 RPM
Windows 7 Home Premium

Test Machine 2: Mid-Range Desktop
Model:
Lenovo H50W-50 i5
CPU:Intel Core i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.20 GHz
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce GT 705
RAM:
8GB DDR3 RAM
SSD (Main Boot Drive for Standard Image):
Samsung 850 PRO 512GB
HDD (Main Boot Drive for Extended Image):
Western Digital Green 2.0TB WD20WZRX
2nd Drive:
Samsung 1000GB 7200RPM HD103UJ
O/S:Windows 10 Pro 64bit

State of Machines
In order to test the performance benefits of CCleaner & Defraggler, PassMark created two images for each test
machine. The first image recorded the state of the operating system (i.e. the boot drive) after moderate usage andthe second image recorded the state of the operating system after heavy usage. These images included thefollowing:
1. Standard Image• Windows OS (fully patched). Windows 7 32-bit on the low-end machine and Windows
10 64-bit on the high-end machine.
• This image will include standard applications that many people will have installed on
their computer over time. These applications should not corrupt the softwareenvironment, but should contribute to some startup overhead and registry bloat.
• Applicationso Note: Some of the following applications may not be applicable to the systemthat is being installed (e.g. drivers which apply to certain manufacturers). In
this case, the application will not be omitted.
o Adobe Flash Playero Adobe Reader
o Apple Safari
o Apple QuickTimeo Apple iTuneso Apple Software Updateo Apple Mobile Device Support
o Bonjouro Dropbox
Windows 7 & Windows 10
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o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
•

Usage
o
o
o

PassMark Software

Google Chrome
Google Earth https://www.google.com/earth/
Google Picasa
Google Toolbar
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools or Office Runtime
Microsoft Windows Live Messenger
Microsoft Office 2016
Microsoft Office File Validation Add-In
Microsoft One Drive
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Maintenance Service
Real Player
Realtek High Definition Audio Driver
Realtek Ethernet Controller Driver
Realtek Card Reader
Sun Java Runtime Environment
Synaptics Pointing Device Driver
Steam
VLC media player
Full video card driver packages matching the video card hardware installed in
the machine.
300+ Internet Sites visited
A selection of applications will be uninstalled randomly and reinstalled
randomly (should help create fragmentation & registry issues)
A large number of songs will be loaded into iTunes.

2. Extended Image• This image is created from the Standard image and includes some more commonly installed
applications as well as some less common ones.
• Applications:o Adobe AIR
o Adobe Photoshop CC (trial)o Adobe Illustrator (trial)o Ask.com Toolbar
o The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimo Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flago Avast Free Antiviruso Microsoft One Driveo Skypeo uTorrent
o Yahoo Messenger
o Yahoo Widgets
o VMWare Workstationo Teamviewer
o Google hangouts
o Google Driveo Driver booster
o Malwarebytes
o WhatsApp for PC
o Spotify
Windows 7 & Windows 10
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PassMark Softwareo Evernote Clipper
o YTD video downloader
This image also contains applications that have been selected because they specifically add
unwanted startup entries to the registry.
• Weatherbug• Big Fish Game Manager• Flip Words

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

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Appendix 2 – Methodology Description
Benchmark 1 – Disk space recovered
Similar to Benchmark 2, OSForensics was used to create signatures of the C: drive before and after acleanup has been conducted using each product. The before and after was compared and the difference
was calculated to get the total disk space recovered.

Benchmark 2 – Disk space recovered per week
After the initial cleanup using CCleaner was performed, a week’s worth of activity was performed andthen the cleanup performed again. A snapshot of the C:\ drive was taken before and after the subsequentcleanup is performed, similar to the method for Benchmark 3.
A week’s of activity was emulated by carrying out activities such as:•••

Browsing a set of web pages
Downloading and applying a Microsoft hotfix (applies to Win7 only since individual hotfixes
cannot be applied in Win10)
Installing and/or Uninstalling a set of applications

Benchmark 3 – Change in free RAM
For this benchmark, the test machine was rebooted and after a five-minute idle period, a Windows
screenshot was taken of Windows Task Manager’s performance tab. On Windows 10 this was the
Available Physical Memory. On Windows 7 this was the Free Physical Memory.

Benchmark 4 – Machine boot time
Note: Before running either of the below boot tests with CCleaner installed, all startup applications will
be manually disabled via the CCleaner Startup tab.
Windows 10
PassMark Software uses tools available from the Windows Performance Toolkit (as part of theMicrosoft Windows 10 ADK obtainable from the Microsoft Website).
The Boot Performance (fast startup) test is ran as an individual assessment via the Windows
Assessment Console. The network connection is disabled and the login password is removed to
avoid interruption to the test. The final result is taken as the total boot duration excluding BIOS
load time.
Windows 7
PassMark Software uses tools available from the Windows Performance Toolkit version 4.6 (aspart of the Microsoft Windows 7 SDK obtainable from the Microsoft Website) with a view toobtaining more precise and consistent boot time results on the Windows 7 platform.

Windows 7 & Windows 10
Performance Benchmark

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The boot process is first optimized with xbootmgr.exe using the command “xbootmgr.exe trace boot –prepSystem” which prepares the system for the test over six optimization boots.
The boot traces obtained from the optimization process are discarded.
After boot optimization, the benchmark is conducted using the command "xbootmgr.exe -traceboot -numruns 5”. This command boots the system five times in succession, taking detailed
boot traces for each boot cycle.
Finally, a post-processing tool was used to parse the boot traces and obtain the
BootTimeViaPostBoot value. This value reflects the amount of time it takes the system tocomplete all (and only) boot time processes. The final result is an average of five boot traces.

Benchmark 5 – Browser load time
The average launch time of the default browser (Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 and Internet Explorer on
Windows 7) interface was taken using AppTimer. For each round, a total of fifteen samples from five setsof three browser launches were taken, with a reboot before each set to clear caching effects by theoperating system. When compiling the results, the first of each set was separated out so that there wasa set of values for the initial launch after reboot and a set for subsequent launches. The final result forthis test is an average of the subsequent launch average and the initial launch time. AppTimer is publicly
available from the PassMark Website.

Benchmark 6 – Manual cleanup time vs. CCleaner cleanup time
This test compared the time to complete the following two cleanup methods:
1.

A manual cleanup in which cleanup tasks were run manually by removing them via Windows
explorer. The process included tasks equivalent to that of a clean run by CCleaner. This will be timed
manually and will include:
•
•
•
•
•
•

2.

Clearing browser/s cookies, history, temporary files, form data, passwords, and autocomplete
data.
Clearing recent file lists from Microsoft Office applications.
Clearing recent file lists from Adobe applications.
Clearing Windows recent items.
Clearing recent items from the Windows start menu.
Clearing Windows temporary files, crash dumps, and Windows log files.

Running a cleanup with CCleaner using the default settings. The time is obtained from an accurate
reading given by the program itself or when this is not available, manually with a stopwatch. Note:
After running the CCleaner cleanup, all startup applications are manually disabled via the CCleaner
Startup tab.

Benchmark 7 – Installation size
Using PassMark’s OSForensics we created initial and post-installation disk signatures for each product.
These disk signatures recorded the amount of files and directories, and complete details of all files onthat drive (including file name, file size, checksum, etc.) at the time the signature was taken.
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The initial disk signature was taken immediately prior to installation of the product. A subsequent disk
signature was taken immediately following a manual update and system reboot after product installation.
Using OSForensics, we compared the two signatures and calculated the total disk space consumed byfiles that were new, modified, and deleted during product installation. Our result for this metric reflects
the total size of all newly added files during installation.

Benchmark 8 – Installation time
This test measures the minimum installation time a product requires to be fully functional and ready foruse by the end user. This was timed manually using a stopwatch. Note that to reduce variability, user
response and reaction times, for e.g. time to read the text displayed or enter in a license key were notincluded in this time.

Benchmark 9 – Memory usage during idle
The command-line utility memlog was used to record snapshots of process memory usage during aperiod of system idle. Snapshots were taken every minute, beginning after a 5-minute idle period
following a boot. This will be done only once per round for a total of 15 samples. The sum of theaverage memory usages for each process was calculated to give the final result.
Note: CCleaner has a process that runs in the background even when the app windows is closed,
whereas Defraggler does not. Thus there was no memory usage to measure for Defraggler in the idle
state.

Benchmark 10 – CPU usage during idle
A tool called CPUAvg was used to measure the average CPU usage during a period of system idle. CPUAvg
was run for a total of 5 minutes (beginning after a 5-minute idle period immediately after a boot). CPUAvg
takes periodic measurements of CPU usage and automatically calculates the average recorded CPU usage
upon completion. This average is used as the result.

Benchmark 11 – Number of artifacts & passwords cleaned
PassMark software used the OSForensics Recent Activity and Password Recovery features to measure thenumber of artifacts and passwords that have been cleaned up by each product. Before each product’s
cleaning function is run, sample artifacts and passwords were placed on the test machine. OSForensics
was then run to extract artifacts and passwords from the machine both before and after the CCleaner’s
cleaning function was executed. The difference in the number of artifacts and passwords extracted before
and after gives the final result.

Windows 7 & Windows 10
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Disclaimer and DisclosureThis report only covers versions of products that were available at the time of testing. The tested versions are as
noted in the “Products and Versions” section of this report.

Disclaimer of Liability
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information presented in this report is accurate, PassMark
Software Pty Ltd assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or out-of-date information and shall not be liable
in any manner whatsoever for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from theavailability of, use of, access of, or inability to use this information.

Disclosure
Piriform Software Limited funded the production of this report. The list of products tested and the metrics includedin the report were selected by Piriform.

Trademarks
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact Details
PassMark Software Pty Ltd
Level 563 Foveaux St.
Surry Hills, 2010
Sydney, Australia
Phone + 61 (2) 9690 0444
Fax

+ 61 (2) 9690 0445

Web

www.passmark.com

Windows 7 & Windows 10
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